No federal employment protections for LGBT individuals?

It’s sad that in this day and age it’s still legal to be fired simply for being LGBT. And even within the LGBT and allied community it is not really common knowledge that there are no federal employment protections currently in place, according to Rea Carey’s recent article in the Huffington Post. According to that article a full two-thirds of self-indentified LGBT people believe that there is already a federal law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Really? That is the reaction, in large part, of LGBT people and the public alike. And that’s a hurdle we need to overcome in order to move forward.”

This makes the recent disappointment she reports on all the worse: the Obama administration recently announced that they would not sign an executive order banning anti-LGBT discrimination for governmental contractors.

“In an attempt to clarify their reasoning behind not protecting scores of people immediately, the White House took the opportunity to reemphasize its support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA),” Carey writes. “Many people are simply scratching their heads, since there is no chance whatsoever of passing ENDA in the current Congress.”

And while there has been much movement on the individual city, university, and corporation front, the fact is that approximately half of the LGBT population is working without the protection of the law. This only increases the stress of those individuals, people who probably feel that they must stay in the closet if only to avoid the possibility of losing their jobs.

“Tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of people will walk into work afraid,” she finishes. “Let’s make those days fewer and fewer.”